Paul encourages Timothy to stir up and rekindle the fire of God in his life – then he ties Timothy’s flame being quenched to fear. Fear can put out God’s fire in our lives! We need to continually be watchful to not allow fear to come in. In context, when considering Timothy’s circumstances and the time that he was living in, Christians were being martyred, tortured and imprisoned for just being a Christian. The Jews hated them, the Romans hated them – everybody hated them with a passion! – So, in every believer dealt with overcoming fear on a daily basis.
Some of you reading this may live in a part of the world where you can totally relate to Paul and Timothy, but those of us in America and many other Christian friendly nations may not be able to relate to the extent of persecution the early believers faced.
You may not be facing horrific torture for your faith, but the devil will still attempt to put out your fire with fear. Fear comes in many forms – fear of failure, fear of financial lack, fear of rejection, fear of being judged and the like. Many times we do not even recognize fear as fear. Many are out of fellowship today for fear of being hurt again – many have walls up for fear of betrayal – many will not step out in faith because they are afraid that they are not good enough for the Lord to use them, or that sins of the past disqualify them from being used of the Lord. Many will not even open themselves up to hope, because of the fear that they will be disappointed! These fears all quench the fire for God in our lives.
Give all of your fears to the Lord today, fan into a flame and rekindle the fire of God, in Jesus Name! Pray in the Spirit, stir yourself up in the Holy Ghost, drink the new wine of the Holy Ghost and let Jesus baptize you anew with the Holy Ghost and with fire!
